Twice Across the Same River
by LadySilver
Summary: While on their way to Sacramento, Stephen and Irene make a pit-stop in Beacon Hills, where they become involved in an assassination attempt on Scott and Stiles.
1. Stephen

_A/N: Written for _teaotter_ for the crossovering exchange on DW. This story is set post-series for the _Tomorrow People_ and sometime mid-season 4 for _Teen Wolf _as if the two timelines match up. As always, comments, questions, concrit, and squee are all equally welcomed. Thanks to htbthomas for the beta._

**Twice Across the Same River**

by LadySilver

The teleport ended and Stephen stumbled away from Irene, destabilized from the effort of transporting a mundane passenger over such a great distance. He threw a hand up and found a wall to lean against while he caught his balance, only belatedly feeling the patina of grime unique to alleys everywhere. "Yuck," he said, despite making no effort to pull away.

"It's better than appearing in the middle of a crowded street," Irene supplied. She didn't need to read his mind to know what he was thinking—not that she could anymore-; the paranoia earned from years of hiding from an organization out to destroy her hadn't faded, and probably wouldn't, even if both she and they had been effectively neutralized. "The fewer people who know about us, the safer we all are. Alleys may not be the cleanest places in the world, but at least the only accidental witnesses we have to worry about are rats, and when was the last time anyone listened to the testimony of a bunch of rats? Never, that's when."

Stephen nodded, a smile pulling at his mouth at Irene's analysis. His side hurt like he'd been running hard and a wave of dizziness swept over his eyes, yet the fact that they weren't fleeing for their lives made the exertion of teleporting so much easier to bear. Still: "We're gonna have to rest here," Stephen gasped out. Another long jaunt was out of the question until he'd had a chance to recuperate. Teleporting wasn't supposed to be this hard, he thought. Traveling this way usually took almost no effort since he'd gotten the hang of the mechanics. Though, he'd never tried to cross the country before. Cara had warned him that the trip would be a lot more difficult than he thought, and would probably end up taking as long as if they had just driven. Cheaper, though. Especially since he didn't have a car.

"Which leads to the question: Where is here?" Irene pulled out her cell phone and began poking at the screen. She studied the map that appeared, then glanced up as if to verify what she saw on the screen with the satellites she couldn't see orbiting high overhead in the still daylit sky. "Beacon Hills, California," she concluded. She scrolled around the map more, assessing the relative locations of the towns and frowned at what she learned. "Well, it's hardly the most direct route you could have taken from New York. Remind me to give you a refresher in geometry."

"I'm doing the best I can," Stephen countered. "Besides, it's hard to teleport without a clear destination. I'm kinda surprised we haven't ended up smashing into a mountain or standing in the middle of the desert or something."

"Yeah, you have managed to always land us near food and shelter. I guess meeting basic needs outweighs travel efficiency in the subconscious mind." She looked thoughtful, made a note in the relevant app on her phone, then re-pocketed the device.

"This town felt like a good place to stop for the night," Stephen agreed, choosing to ignore Irene's action. In fact, the subject of basic needs had made his stomach rumble. At the same time a new wave of dizziness reminded him that he'd really been pushing his powers further than he ever had. "Tell me again why I agreed to take you home?"

Irene shrugged the question off. "It's not like I could fly."

"Because...we don't have that power?" Stephen asked, knowing as he heard the words coming out of his mouth that he was asking a stupid question.

Irene confirmed his suspicion with a raised eyebrow at him. "Because I don't have any ID. The downside to going off the grid is that it's not all that easy to come back onto it." She pushed her glasses back into place with an air of finality. Though younger than Stephen, if only by a few months, she often spoke as if she had decades additional experience. Right now, he was happy to let her be the older and wiser one.

With a tug on the sleeve of Stephen's hoodie, she began walking them out of the alley and into the bustle of downtown Beacon Hills—which, Stephen realized at a glance, barely had enough going for it to qualify as a downtown: A handful of stores, a movie theater with an old fashioned marquee advertising a movie that had already been out for weeks, a few restaurants. And the edge of the strip easily visible in both directions from where he stood. A few people milled under the canopy of the movie theater, probably waiting for their show to start. A few more sat at the tables in front of a coffee shop and two restaurants with patios. A few cars were parked along the bucolic street, while pedestrians wandered amongst them, making more effort to avoid runaway skateboarders and rollerbladers on the sidewalk than the drivers on the street. While he'd seen streets like this on TV shows, he had no idea that they existed in reality.

Even as his expectations of finding worthwhile civilization were plummeting, Irene's face lit up. "How cute!" she exclaimed, taking the final step onto the sidewalk and into full view of anyone who so much as glanced their direction. "It looks just like the town where I grew up. Oh my god! I can't believe they have a Flavio's. That was my favorite restaurant when I was a kid. I can't wait to taste their pizza again." She swung her backpack, stuffed full of clothes and electronics, into place and started toward the pizzeria in question.

Cringing, but not at all up for an argument, Stephen fell into step behind her. The sooner they got some food, the sooner they'd be able to find a place to crash for the night. Most likely, they'd end up in an abandoned building, but maybe they could find a vacant motel room nearby. Though not ideal, it wouldn't be the first time one of the Tomorrow People, himself included, helped themselves to a room no one else was using.

"Zombies!" he heard someone proclaim in a voice that easily carried over the dim hubbub of street noises. "It's gotta be zombies."

The fervor of the declaration broke through the thoughts stuffing Stephen's mind. The speaker was one of a pair of boys walking a few feet ahead, probably headed for the theater. The loose plaid shirt he wore flapped with each broad gesticulation as he sought to convince his friend.

The friend shook his head with the exasperation of someone who was dealing with an old argument. He ran a hand through his hair, revealing a tattoo of two thick, black lines that encircled his muscled arm. "It can't be zombies, Stiles..." _Please not zombies. Not even pretend zombies. Real werewolves are bad enough. Don't we have enough supernatural in our lives? Why do we need to see it in the movies? _The thought buried whatever the guy had actually said, and Stephen found himself picking up his pace, drawn in despite himself. While overhearing wild, even crazy, thoughts was an unfortunate downside of being able to read minds, something about this one had the ring of a simple truth being simply recognized and he wanted to know more.

"Come _on_, Stephen," Irene said. She again grabbed his sleeve and pulled him with her to cross the street. "I'm starving and we still need to find a place to sleep. I don't know about you, but I'd like to do that while it's still light out."

"Yeah, OK." Stephen threw a last glance at the two boys as they continued on their way and did his best to forget about the odd thoughts he'd picked up, in lieu of the more pressing matters they both agreed on.

The pizza, when it finally arrived, was wrong in every way from the type of crust to the flavor of the sauce. Despite his hunger, Stephen could only nibble at his slice. Irene, on the other hand, bit into her first slice with gusto. "Ohhh, I've missed this," she moaned around a mouthful of cheese and sauce.

"You've lived in New York City for how long and California pizza is what you miss?" Stephen asked. It was hard to even think of the concoction laying before him as pizza. Even the smell made him wrinkle his nose.

"I've lived a lot of places and nothing ever tastes as good as the food you ate growing up."

"You haven't had my mother's cooking, have you?" Stephen quipped. His mother was actually a pretty decent cook—when she found time to do it—which wasn't often. Though, he'd never been forced to leave his family behind like Irene had. Maybe he'd have an even higher estimation of his mother's cooking if he only had memories of it.

The two had taken a seat at one of the outdoor tables. Out in the warm evening weather, where they could eat their food and watch the people from a safe distance, it soon became clear that the downtown had more activity than first glance had suggested. Not only were people lining up at the theater, but a fair number walked up and down the street window shopping, socializing, and eating ice-cream, tacos, and hot dogs. Try though he did to keep from staring at any one person, Stephen felt his eyes continually drift back to the tattooed teen and his friend who had drifted to stand outside a small sporting goods store down the block. From this distance, he couldn't read their minds, which only left him all the more curious about what they were thinking.

"I wonder what my parents and sisters are going to say when they see me," Irene mused. "They don't even know why I left, and here I am showing up again after years of no contact. Forget what they're going to say! What am I going to tell _them_?" The half-eaten slice of pizza now dangled, forgotten, from her hands. Grease dripped in slow drops from the edge to spatter on the table.

"You could tell them the truth," Stephen suggested, only half listening to her question. Of the members of his family, only his brother Luca had needed to be _told _about the Tomorrow People. Since finding out, their once close relationship was strained to near-breaking. So, maybe his advice wasn't worthwhile and Irene was better off telling her family that she'd cracked under the pressure of trying to get her PhD before being old enough to vote. At least they were likely to believe that.

What he did know is that the plaid-dressed teen—Stiles was it?—was jabbing his finger at something in the sporting goods store window as if he'd never cared more about winning any argument in his life.

Stephen was trying to figure out an excuse to go over and talk to them when a car parked on the street exploded.

The shockwave blasted out and pounded into anything in its path. Behind the two teens, the plate glass window of the sporting goods store shattered. Stephen was halfway to his feet when the first flames sprung from the car and the audience's collective hush turned to screams. Reacting on instinct, he teleported from the table, appeared between the teens, threw his arms around them, and disappeared microseconds before the flying shards of glass cut into them.

They came crashing to a landing in the alley, limbs entangled. Stephen collapsed onto the asphalt like a man who'd been sucker punched then smashed over the head with a folding chair. A knee hit his ribs, an elbow jabbed into his thigh. He groaned loudly, but couldn't bring himself to so much as lift a hand to fend off the accidental blows.

From the street a staccato burst of gunfire brought forth a round of screams. As suddenly as it started, the gunfire stopped, leaving a long, empty silence.

Stephen's two passengers scrambled to their feet, adding more kicks and jabs as they pulled apart.

"Scott?" he heard, the name drawn out into a slow question that was laden with all the others that a reasonable person might ask.

"Keep an eye on him," Scott replied. His steps barely sounded as he moved to the alley entrance. "I'll go find out what happened."

In the shade of the buildings that flanked the alley, the asphalt was almost pleasantly warm. For a moment, Stephen thought about relaxing into it and falling asleep right there. However, the rank smell of hot garbage and cooking urine destroyed even the illusion of comfort he might have found. The smells came at him from all sides and it didn't matter which way he turned his head. Stephen's eyelids fluttered open to find the plaid-dressed guy standing over him, arms crossed, and his lips thinned in a humorless smile. "Don't you dare move."

"Hey," Stephen protested. "I just saved your life." His voice sounded funny to his ears and he wondered if the explosion had damaged his hearing. But, no, the wailing sirens of ambulances and police cars coming down the street sounded perfectly clear.

"Yeah, we're gonna talk about that, too," the guy replied. Without taking his eyes off Stephen or raising his voice, he continued, "Scott, what's going on out there?"


	2. Scott

Scott stood at the mouth of the alley and tried to take in the chaos of the street scene. The exploded car burned with ravenous flames; thick black smoke poured from under the carriage and out of the shattered side windows. Already, the paint on the adjacent cars was beginning to buckle from the heat. Debris littered the sidewalk and street around the explosion. Most of the people who'd been in the vicinity had crowded back against the buildings. At least two people had been hit; whether by shrapnel or gunfire, he couldn't tell. The area of worst damage was right where he and Stiles had been standing. There the window was destroyed, the display pieces inside ripped apart. Gouges pocked the brick facade around the store from the bullets that had hit it. If he and Stiles hadn't moved, there was no way they wouldn't have been killed.

But how had they moved? Narrowing his eyes, Scott turned to look at the third person in the alley with them. A younger guy, white, he had the kind of life-weary face that made him look older than he was. That weariness was starting to become all too common at Beacon Hills High, though Scott couldn't recall ever seeing this particular face amongst them. The teen lay under Stiles's guard with the bearing of someone too tired to put up a fight. His red hoodie and beige cargo pants were rumpled and smudged. Soot, Scott thought at first, but he quickly realized that it was just dirt. Whatever had happened out there, he hadn't been touched.

He was just opening his mouth to ask a question when he was interrupted.

"Stephen!"

A blonde girl skidded into the alley. The weight of her overstuffed backpack nearly unbalanced her at the abrupt change of direction and she flailed her arms around in a wholly ungraceful move. Barely was she back under control than she took in the three boys in succession and, apparently determining Scott as the one in the best position to answer, demanded to know: "What are you doing to Stephen? He was just trying to help. You should be thanking him. And not hurting him. And oh my god! what are you?"

"Nice one, Scotty," Stiles commented.

Scott glanced down at his hands and the sharp, black claws that tipped each finger. A touch of his tongue to his teeth confirmed fangs. He couldn't remember shifting, though it could have been any time in the last few minutes, given all that had happened. He tried to will his heartbeat to slow, to shift back to human form. Just then, the girl reached for something in pocket of her denim jacket. _Gun_, he thought, recalling the strafing fire and pockmarked bricks he had just witnessed.

Scott threw himself at the girl, knocking her to the ground with a _whump. _A puff of dirt and dust flew up into his eyes. He ignored the sudden grit and went instead for the girl's pocket. She was an assassin. She had to be. A car bomb could have been meant for someone else—if he'd been living in Los Angeles or Miami. In Beacon Hills, violence like that was usually aimed at him. Especially these days with the dead pool and the $25 million dollar ticket on his head. Every assassin everywhere was converging on his town in hopes of taking him out; from human teenagers to monsters with no mouths, he couldn't predict what or who they might be or what method of destruction they might use. A blonde, petite teenager with glasses? Why not a trained assassin.

His fingers closed around a hard object. Plastic. Rounded corners. Under him, the girl struggled. On realizing that she was no match for his strength, she went limp. Scott blinked hard against the tears that were now obscuring his vision and wiggled the object to free it from the pocket. All he had to do was get it away from her. Sheriff Stilinski was no doubt on his way by now. As soon as he knew that yet another person had tried to kill Scott, and this time had also almost killed his son too, he'd throw them in jail so fast that even werewolf speed wouldn't be able to keep up.

Distracted, Scott missed that the girl had twisted an arm free. Fingers hooked into the dip of his collarbone and yanked down. Scott reared back with a yell.

"Get off her!"

A force like a body ramming into him at full tackle picked him up and slammed him into the brick wall. Scott felt ribs crack. He slid down the wall and pooled to a stop, winded, throat searing from the defensive move, and chest in a vise of pain.

"Whoa," Stiles said, voice full of awe. "That was awesome! I mean, Scott are you okay?" A scramble of shoes on asphalt, and Stiles appeared at Scott's side to help him sit up and brush off. Using the hem of his overshirt, he wiped Scott's eyes free of the dust. Similar scuffling on the other side of the alley indicated that the girl and her friend, Stephen, were coming together.

Out in the street, car alarms were blaring in a mismatched symphony up and down the street with the sirens of the arriving emergency vehicles filling in the gaps. Eventually, Scott was going to have to go out there and face the Sheriff's questions.

For the moment, it was all he could do to stand up. Scott winced and pressed a hand against his ribs even as they started to heal. Too bad a werewolf's powers to draw away someone's pain wasn't self-administrative.

The look on Stiles's face was simultaneously one of concern and excitement. "Dude," Stiles said. "You should've seen that. He picked you up and threw you. Without touching you. He didn't even stand up. I was watching him the whole time."

"Stiles," Scott grunted out. He tried to see past his friend at the other two and what they were doing. Assassins didn't stop just because they'd been thwarted once. He'd already learned that the hard way. "They're the ones who-"

"My phone!" the girl wailed. "My research!"

Scott managed to push Stiles aside, rising to his feet with only a little bit of effort. He'd already let his guard down too much.

Stephen was glaring at him. He looked completely wrung out, pale and drawn with dark circles under his eyes—in the pseudo-dusk of the alley, he looked a lot like one of the zombies that Stiles had been convinced they were due to be meeting any day now—yet, a hardness in the set of his chin made it clear that he didn't plan to go down without a fight. "We can get you another phone, Irene" he said, "and your research is backed up to the cloud, isn't it?"

"Everything's backed up to Tim," Irene agreed, which seemed to assuage most of her upset, for all that it sounded like nonsense to Scott. "But it's going to take me forever to customize a new phone. Do you know how hard it was to get this one to work correctly?"

The phone in question was broken in two, and Scott realized that he was the one who'd done it. What he'd assumed was a gun was just a harmless piece of technology. Though, maybe not so harmless if she'd been planning to take pictures of him in his wolfed-out form. The assassins already knew too much; if they had pictures of him...

Stephen started to answer her, then his brow furrowed. "Assassins?" he asked, as if reading Scott's mind. "You think we're _assassins?_" He snorted out a laugh.

"He what?" Irene asked. "Oh my god! You can't be serious? _You? _An assassin? He has no idea." Her laugh was closer to a bray. Stephen offered a tip of his shoulders in silent acknowledgment of some shared understanding, which was apparently cause for Irene to laugh even louder. Sobering, she asked Scott, "Why would anyone want to assassinate you? Is it because of...?" She waved a hand at her face, as if to indicate the brow ridges and side-burns that he was pretty sure were no longer in evidence on his own.

"Because Scott's a werewolf?" Stiles supplied. "Yeah, that seems to be the compelling reason these days."

Scott elbowed his friend. Hard. Stiles elbowed right back, and the two got into a brief elbow scuffle that ended with Stiles slapping Scott's arm away. To take the sting out of his victory, Stiles gave Scott a hand up.

"You mean you didn't know?" Scott asked.

Stephen looked sheepish. "Um, not exactly. I might've overheard something..."

Scott paused in rubbing his healing ribs. If he hadn't already thought Stephen had supernatural abilities, he did now, because he knew he hadn't said anything about assassins out loud. "How?"

"And how exactly did you save us?" Stiles asked, addressing the most elephantine of the questions. "Because I really wouldn't mind taking a few lessons." He bounced once on the balls of his feet as if eager to get started.

Stephen and Irene traded a look.

"Telepathy," Irene said, answering Scott's question. To Stiles she added, "Teleportation. Telekinesis. The Three Ts. They're not powers you can learn. You either have them-" She cut her gaze away as if confessing to a painful secret— "Or you don't."

"Oh come on!" Stiles protested, oblivious to the weight of her words. "Imagine what I could do if I could throw people around with a gesture!" The dramatic sweeping motion he made with his arm didn't even flutter the garbage on the alley floor.

Ribs finally fully healed, Scott squatted down in front of Stephen and Irene. "So you really weren't trying to kill us?" Scott asked, just to clarify. As much as he wanted to know what they'd done—and as much as Stiles wanted to learn to do what they'd done—he really needed to have their status as friend or foe hammered down first.

"Promise," Stephen answered with a weary raising of his hand like he was heading for a Boy Scout salute and didn't have the energy to complete the simple gesture. His already pounding heartbeat didn't flutter at all. He was telling the truth. "Couldn't even if I wanted to."

A blare of siren brought everyone's head around to the mouth of the alley, and to the reminder that what they'd escaped from was bigger than just the four of them.

"So, guys, I think we should be getting out of here," Irene suggested. "Someone's bound to be searching for the real guys—or gals—who blew up the car and they've eventually going to start looking in the alleys, which, you have to admit, is not the most normal place for people who are _innocent _to be hanging out." She pushed her glasses back up on her nose.

"Nah, there's no worries," Stiles answered. "My dad's the sheriff and he's used to finding me at crime scenes." As all eyes centered on him, he rolled his arms in a visual backtrack. "Besides, we're the victims here."

"Yeah, but your dad's going to want to know how you got here, and it would be a lot better for all of us if you didn't tell him," Stephen pointed out. He pulled himself to his feet his a loud groan, one hand on his lower back.

Figuring that he kind of owed Stephen, Scott offered his arm to help balance him. Stephen took it without hesitation. He seemed as unconcerned with Scott being a werewolf as with Scott wearing a blue shirt.

Together, the four of them started toward the alley's exit and the explanations that lay beyond. Despite Stiles's nonchalance on the topic, his father was _not_ going to be happy to learn that his son was once again at the center of a crime. Nor was he going to be happy to learn that the car bomb was another assassination attempt. All other issues aside, the amount of lying required in his paperwork to cover up who exactly the assassins were and what exactly they were after had forced him into an ethical and moral dilemma that had no outcome in his favor.

A whiff of a new scent stilled Scott. He inhaled deeply, searching for more of it amongst the overpowering smells of the alley, the burning metal and gasoline, the acrid terror of the bystanders and other victims that underlay everything.

"What's going on, Scott?" Stiles asked.

Scott started to shake his head, certain that the smell had been a fluke. A bit of cinnamon gum, a splash of aftershave, a dose of excitement. It could have been anyone who had walked down the main street earlier that day and whose scent the breeze had just pushed his direction. Only, there it was again, filtering down from above. He looked up.

A man lay on his stomach, leaning over the edge of the roof some three stories up. He had the deep-red-tan of a person who lived outdoors and the grin of someone who had already planned exactly how to spend the 25 million dollars he was about to come into. "Found 'im," he muttered. "Still alive. Figures. I told her to keep it simple." With that, he brought a large metal tube around on his shoulder, aimed, and fired.

Despite his enhanced reactions, Scott barely had the time to position himself in front of Stiles.

The projectile exploded over the group's head. The released net wrapped itself around the four teens, entangling them, yanking them together. Scott fell into Stiles who crashed into Irene and Stephen, pulling all of them down into a pile on the ground. Scott's arms were tapped under Irene's backpack, his knees twisted painfully from the angle of the fall. The net cut into his skin. "Stephen," he gasped out. He hoped that whatever trick Stephen had used to bring them into the alley, he'd be able to use to get them out of it.

"I can't," Stephen answered. He sounded like his breath had been knocked out of him. "Three's too many."

"Come on, man," Stiles pleaded.

Through the gaps in the net Scott saw the assassin switch out the tube for a new weapon, this one longer and with flame licking off the end of the barrel. Scott struggled to free his hands; if Stephen couldn't get them out of this, then Scott's claws were the only chance at survival. If he could slash the net apart...

The assassin pulled the trigger and the sharp scent of propane slashed through the air. Heat began to build.

Irene let out a wordless scream.

The net burst apart. The incoming flame veered away to ignite a pile of garbage a dozen feet away. "Run!" Irene ordered, even as everyone still scrambled to separate themselves and get their feet under them. Precious seconds passed before the command could be followed during which the flame shooting down from the roof continued to bend away from them as if being pushed.

"I'm not doing that," Stephen uttered.

"I am. Now, go!" When Stephen didn't move, Irene shrugged off her backpack and threw it at him. The weight caught him square in the chest, shocking him out of his amazement. "Get out of here!"

Seeing his chance, Scott jumped. With his strength and agility, the three story climb was nothing. In seconds, he reached the top of the building. The assassin was so busy cursing at his flame thrower that he didn't see Scott until it was too late. Scott pulled the flame thrower away; the hot metal casing burned his hand, but he didn't care. As soon as the assassin's hand was off the trigger, the flame stopped. A second later, the assassin himself was unconscious.

Scott allowed himself a moment to catch his breath before returning to the ground, heartened by the sight of his friends running from the alley and into the safety of the police cordon.


	3. Irene

By contrast to the prospect of sleeping in an abandoned building, Stiles's house felt palatial. It had walls and roof without holes in them, a place to take a hot shower, the promise of a comfortable bed with sheets and a pillow, and so much more that Irene was just beginning to catalog. Though the subway station she'd lived in for the last year had been fixed up to be as comfortable as a subway station could be, nothing compared to real houses. It made her long for her own even more.

Irene dropped her backpack inside the door, unkinked her back and neck, then threw her arms out like she was three and spun around in the hallway. "Oh, A/C. Miracle of modern science. How I've missed you." Her exuberant mood needed an outlet and appreciation for climate control made as good an excuse as any.

"Dad says it's OK if you stay here for a couple days to rest up," Stiles said. "I think he has a lot of questions for you about what exactly happened back there. He, uh, won't hold it against you if you don't want to answer them, or anything, but you can trust him."

"What did happen back there?" Scott asked.

Irene stilled, her whole demeanor maturing to the late-teen that she was. "I got my powers back. Which was really a surprise. I mean, it was theoretically possible because the method Jedikiah used for extracting them shouldn't have been permanent. On the other hand, it had never been tested on a human subject before—well, any subject for that matter—and there's no way to know what the long-term consequences..." She trailed off at the dumbfounded looks on Scott's and Stiles's faces. "Stephen's not the only one who has superpowers. Not anymore!" She sang out the last.

"You too?" Stiles asked. His forehead creased into a disappointed frown; he crossed his arms with a harumph. "Everywhere I turn," he muttered. "Guy can't catch a break."

Stephen had barely made in through the door before collapsing on the couch. At Stiles's comment, he opened his eyes long enough to say, "Hey, at least the assassins and kill squads aren't targeting you."

"The kill squads aren't coming after us anymore," Irene corrected. With ULTRA dismantled, so were the efforts to destroy the people like her and Stephen. She heard herself say it, gave a squeal as the fact of what she said finally sunk in, and threw her arms around Stiles, who was standing at the closest to her. "No more kill squads! We don't have to stay in hiding anymore."

"Go you?" Stiles awkwardly patted her back.

"Kill squads?" Scott asked.

Stephen sighed. "Long story." He let out a jaw-cracking yawn and started to settle back into the couch, and then sat up suddenly as he caught up with what all happened. "I guess this means you don't need me to take you home anymore?"

Wow, OK, Irene thought. She had been so focused on _that_ she was going home that she had forgotten about _why_. "I guess not," she answered. "I mean, unless you want to come with me to meet my family."

"Why don't we figure it out tomorrow?" Stephen suggested. Without waiting for an answer, he focused blearily on Stiles. "Come on, you think kill squads aren't as bad as assassins?"

While the boys traded stories about assassins and kill squads, Irene tuned them out and got to work on making yet another new plan for her life. Once it had all seemed so clear cut: get her PhD and become a researcher. Then she got superpowers and had to go into hiding. Now...?

By the time she plopped down at the breakfast table the next morning, she had it all figured out. "So, I do need to get a new phone." She shot a meaningful glare at Scott, who looked away sheepishly. "And I really should get a new Driver's License, and let my family know that I'm OK since I haven't seen or talked to them in ages."

The magic of a night's sleep, hot showers, and clean clothes had everyone at the table relaxed and eager to treat the previous day's adventure with all the gravitas they'd give to an inconvenient flat tire on a rainy day. Never mind that everyone, except Scott, had burned-pink faces and singed hair.

Stiles poured himself a bowl of cereal and passed the box to Scott. "Honey Nut Cheerios?" Scott asked.

"They're good for your heart," Stiles stated. "We could all use some heart health."

Stephen accepted the box next, rattling the contents as if to verify that Stiles had left enough to go around. "Then what?" he asked Irene.

"Then we don't all die of heart attacks instead of the thing that's actually trying to kill us," Stiles answered around the spoon in his mouth. Only when Scott cleared his throat did he realize he wasn't the one addressed. Pulling the spoon out, he waved it around like a wand. "This is why breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Because I can't be held responsible for anything I say until my stomach is full."

Scott snorted and hid his face in his bowl in lieu of a comeback.

"_Then_," Irene went on, only the grin tugging at her mouth giving away the fact that she'd heard Stiles at all, "I think I'll start up my research again."

"In Sacramento? Is there a university there you can go to?" Stephen asked. "But, wait? Weren't you doing your PhD at MIT?"

"Not that research." She filled her bowl, added the milk. Such a mundane action seemed notable in its normalcy compared to the rest of her life. Like her work at MIT, which had once seemed so exciting and innovative and now held as much allure as the soggy oat rings that would inevitably happen if she didn't eat up. "With everything I've done, everything I've seen, everything I _can_ _do?" _A shake of her head punctuated her decision. "I don't feel like I can go back to what I was studying and take it seriously. I've changed too much. I want to tackle some more challenging ideas."

Stephen narrowed his eyes; she could feel him probing her mind, trying to get a jump on what she was going to say. But, though her powers might be newly returned, she hadn't started over with her knowledge of how to use them. She blocked him, then took a slow bite of her cereal to make him wait and punish him for trying to cheat.

At last Irene swallowed, washed the bite down with a sip of amazing fresh squeezed orange juice, and turned to Scott. "So, what does it mean to 'be a werewolf'?" she asked, air quotes and all. "Is it a genetic thing? Or an acquired thing? Is 'werewolf' the name you chose for what you are? Or is it a name you're stuck using because it sounded good to someone forty years ago?"

The barrage of questions bounced harmlessly off Scott. One look at the amused—veering toward _proud_ grin—on Stiles's face gave away that this wasn't the first time someone had exuberantly come after Scott for information.

"Do you really want to know?" Scott asked, clearly having learned nothing about whom he was dealing with.

"Do you want to know about us?" Irene countered, directing the question to Stiles, who choked on the overlarge spoonful he'd shoved into his mouth in his haste to nod in affirmation. "Let's call it an equal exchange. Just two groups learning about each other so they can better work together." _For now_, she added so that only Stephen could hear. Both of them knew that Irene was never going to be satisfied with getting the answers to a a handful of questions.

Stephen, wisely, kept his thoughts to himself.

Since she didn't have a working phone to use, Irene slapped an old fashioned notebook on the table, and prepared to write with one hand while she ate with the other. Fortunately, she wasn't in a hurry, and regardless of what Stephen decided, she could go home to Sacramento tonight and come back to Beacon Hills whenever she wanted because teleporting took no time at all.


End file.
